Hockey: Ticket to Athens at stake

By TERRY MADDAFORD

In one corner Australia, the undisputed world No 2 in men's hockey. In the other, the ninth-ranked New Zealanders.

At stake, the short route to next year's Athens Olympics.

The Australians will run on to Christchurch's Porritt Park turf tonight confident they can win the first of three tests in the Oceania Olympic qualifier and wrap it up in Wellington on Saturday.

After all, in the same series four years ago, they scored 11 goals (to New Zealand's two) in the opening two matches. In Manchester last year in two games - pool play and final - they also put 11 goals past their transtasman rivals.

The losers will have to play in a cut-throat tournament in Madrid in March where seven of the 12 sides will win spots at the Games.

"Obviously, we want to take the preferred route to Athens without having to worry about the Olympic qualifiers," Australian coach Barry Dancer said yesterday.

"Our ambition is to win two, cleanly and clinically. I'm sure New Zealand has similar ambitions."

Australia have most of the players here who went down 4-2 to Holland in the Champions Trophy final in Amsterdam three weeks ago.

The odds, surely, are heavily stacked their way.

Dancer is not so sure.

"I expect three close games. As the Champions Trophy showed, there is little difference between the top 10 teams in the world," said Dancer, who took over after the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

"We had people in South Africa when New Zealand played July's Champions Challenge, so we have a good idea what to expect.

"We are confident we have enough information to get us home in this series."

Naturally, he and his players are aware of the threat posed by New Zealand's drag flick expert Hayden Shaw.

One easy way to nullify that is to give up few penalty corners - something the Australians are very good at. They conceded just one in the Champions Trophy final and had the lowest penalty count against them at that tournament.

New Zealand coach Kevin Towns, fully aware of that, still sees that set play as his team's best attacking weapon.

"If we can force four or six corners a game and score from 50 per cent, we will be in with a chance," said Towns.

"Realistically, to have any hope of really challenging Australia we have to play to our potential. I feel we are getting close to that.

"They are clearly the second best team in the world. It is not going to be easy but we never thought it would be.

"This tournament has been our focus since the Commonwealth Games."

Probable New Zealand line-up:

Paul Woolford, Dion Gosling, Hayden Shaw, Blair Hopping, Simon Towns (capt), Wayne McIndoe, Darren Smith, Ryan Archibald, Bevan Hari, Phillip Burrows, Umesh Parag.